204 THE ANTIQUITIES [LETT. 



enjoins that these culprits shall be punished by severe fasting, 

 especially if they shall be found to be faulty a third time ; and 

 threatens the prior and sub-prior with suspension if they do 

 not correct this enormity. 



In Item llth the good bishop is very wroth with some of 

 the canons, whom he finds to be professed hunters and sports- 

 men, keeping hounds, and publicly attending hunting matches. 

 These pursuits, he says, occasion much dissipation, danger to 

 the soul and body, and frequent expense ; he, therefore, wishing 

 to extirpate this vice wholly from the convent, " radicibus extir- 

 pare," does absolutely enjoin the canons never intentionally to 

 be present at any public noisy tumultuous huntings ; or to keep 

 any hounds, by themselves or by others, openly or by stealth, 

 within the convent, or without. 1 



In Item 12th he forbids the canons in office to make their 

 business a plea for not attending the service of the choir ; since 

 by these means either divine worship is neglected or their 

 brother canons are overburdened. 



By Item 14th we are informed that the original number of 

 canons at the Priory of Selborne was fourteen ; but that at this 

 visitation they were found to be let down to eleven. The visitor 

 therefore strongly and earnestly enjoins them that, with all due 

 speed and diligence, they should proceed to the election of 

 proper persons to fill up the vacancies, under pain of the greater 

 excommunication. 



In Item 17th, the prior and canons are accused of suffering, 

 through neglect, notorious dilapidations to take place among 

 their manorial houses and tenements, and in the walls and 

 inclosures of the convent itself, to the shame and scandal 

 of the institution : they are therefore enjoined, under pain 

 of suspension, to repair all defects within the space of six 

 months. 



1 Considering the strong propensity in human nature towards the pleasures 

 of the chase, it is not to be wondered that the canons of Selborne should 

 languish after hunting, when, from their situation so near the precincts of 

 Wolmer Forest, the king's hounds must have often been in hearing, and 

 sometimes in sight from their windows. If the bishop was so offended 

 at these sporting canons, what would he have said to our modern fox- 

 hunting divines ? 



